


Mostly Harmless

by lentezon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alien Castiel (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Disabled Dean, Fluff and Crack, M/M, slight ptss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-02 14:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lentezon/pseuds/lentezon
Summary: It was in general agreement that the Pie Maker was a big of a strange fellow. The man had arrived in this town one particularly rainy day, looking tired and frustrated and somewhat confused, and to top it all off he’d been wearing a soaking wet trench coat. He then had started asking the few people around what planet he was on.(Or: the one with a little bit of angst, some space ships, and a lot of pie.)





	1. The First Part

**Author's Note:**

> I started this forever ago while reading The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and recently decided to pick it up again and finish it. There's a lot of food, a lot of Dean angsting, and a little bit of aliens being assholes. I tried to keep it light, and I enjoyed this challenge to myself, so I hope you'll enjoy it too.

 

   On the outskirts of a town in Kansas, there lived a pie maker.

   It was in general agreement that this Pie Maker was a big of a strange fellow. The man had arrived in this town one particularly rainy day, looking tired and frustrated and somewhat confused, and to top it all off he’d been wearing a soaking wet trench coat. He then had started asking the few people around where he was, exactly.

   Now, this wasn’t that strange in itself. Merriam usually wasn’t people’s final destination but rather a place they’d accidentally ended up when taking the wrong exit from the highway on their way to Kansas City, or where to ask for directions to Lawrence. But when Old Carter answered in his usual gruff tone that this was a town in Kansas, the strange man had shaken his head and asked what _planet_ he was on.

   Old Carter just shook his head, muttering something about ‘kids these days’ and the dangers of drugs, even though the stranger looked at least thirty years old. He did seem a little out of it, though, so nobody could entirely disagree with the old man.

   Well, the people of Merriam thought, the stranger would probably be gone soon enough, so they weren’t too worried. Travellers always seemed such strange types.

   Imagine their surprise when two days later, word was that the stranger had taken on an apprenticeship with the local baker, an elderly lady held in high esteem by the townspeople for both her friendly demeanour and her amazing pies.

   “I’m old,” she’d explained herself when people asked. “Most youth are leaving this town for bigger and better things, and taking over small businesses like this doesn’t fit in their plans.” She was talking about her own children, too, who had left for far away colleges one by one and never returned to stay. The old lady barely saw them nowadays, and the townsfolk had muttered in understanding at her words even though they didn’t get what she was doing, taking on a stranger who was probably just passing through and who none of them knew at all.

   But the stranger quickly became less of a novelty. He lived with the old lady and was very private, and there were still whisperings about him, but regular life went on. He was seen too little to keep talking about aside from the occasional rumour.

   Then one day, the old lady decided her apprentice had learnt enough to take over, and just like that, the bakery was owned by the handsome man, and the old lady only helped out anymore when she got an itch in her fingers that could only be soothed by doing what she did best: making pies.

   There is an art to the business of making pies which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. This is precisely the reason that many people fail to reach the point of perfection they are often looking for in their food.

   If Castiel had learnt anything in his time on this planet, it was that food is important to humans.

   So he’d perfected the craft of making pies, first under the watchful eye of Lady Aida, then on his own when she retired.

   The process went like this:

   First, he made the dough. Mixed it, floured it, knead it, all with his bare hands to ensure it wasn’t too sticky and not too dry. He got the supplies from a neighbouring farmer to make sure it was always as fresh as it could possibly be, and for a good price, too. All, except for the eggs. Castiel went far to find a farmer that let his chickens walk around freely enough for him to agree to buy the eggs.

   He got the fruit for the fillings from a neighbouring farmer as well, only the most colourful, shiny pieces. Apple, cherry, peach. All organically grown, because Castiel only wanted the best for his work.

   Castiel even had a special knife for cutting the dough that went on top of the classic pies, one that lay perfectly in his hand and cut as smoothly as it did when he first acquired it. He made sure to take good care of it, keeping it clean and sharp at all times.

   Of course, he had a few more secrets, but those were his to keep. He didn’t make the best pies in the wide vicinity for nothing, after all.

   He was just laying the finishing hand on a classic cherry pie when the bell rang that signalled a customer’s entrance into the pie shop. “I shall be with you in a moment!” he called out, putting his supplies away and washing his hands before putting the now finished pie in the oven. He then entered the quaint little pie shop itself. He was about to politely ask whether he could help his customer when a gruff voice said, “So I heard you’re the new guy.”

   The man leaning against the closed door was tall and muscular, underlined by his crossed arms. Castiel recognized him as aesthetically pleasing, as his features were very symmetrical, his hair a dark blond and his eyes full of things the Pie Maker would like to take the time to identify and explain. Castiel also realized the man was attempting to come across as intimidating, and he should probably act accordingly.

   “Yes,” he agreed with the statement, “one could say so. I have been here just shy of two years, I believe.”

   “Yeah, I heard your arrival was quite the spectacle.”

   Castiel flinched a little. He had figured out fairly quickly that he should keep a low profile here, and his arrival had been exactly… not that. He could have moved on to another town, of course, but something here had pulled him in right away, and he had decided to stay.

   “I was… confused,” he said, raking his eyes over the pies on display rather than looking at this man. The stranger had an aura about him that told Castiel he wouldn’t just accept the Pie Maker’s presence and move on like everybody else had. His green eyes were tired, more so than Castiel had ever seen in a human, but he also had an air of suspicion around him.

   The man snorted derisively, with no real humour in his eyes. He was a stark contrast to the picturesque shop with its pastel colours and cheery appeal, and yet the stranger didn’t seem out of place here.

   “Yeah, I bet.”

   He took a long look at Castiel and finally stepped forward, holding out a hand. “Dean,” he said, looking a bit awkward all of a sudden, as though he wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing.

   The Pie Maker took the extended hand and shook it, not much more comfortable with the situation than Dean looked. He found shaking hands a strange custom even after years of doing it.

   “Hello, Dean,” he said, testing the feel of the name in his mouth and deciding he liked it. “My name is Castiel.”

   He looked straight at Dean as he said it. Dean looked away, let his hand drop, and cleared his throat. He then took a step back before regaining his composure and straightening up again. “So, _Castiel_ ,” he said, “how are you liking Merriam?”

   “It’s alright,” Castiel said, now carefully avoiding Dean’s eyes for fear the man had seen something in Castiel’s blue ones that had ticked him off. In reality, it was boring. He’d considered traveling around with this place as his base, to get to know the surrounding land better, but then he’d watched the news one day and found it depressing, deciding right then and there that it was better to just concentrate on pie instead.

   Dean snorted. “Yeah, right.”

   “Can I ask why you are here?”

   “Just looking to buy a pie,” Dean said nonchalantly. Castiel was sure the man knew he’d meant Merriam, not the pie shop, but he took the change of topic gracefully. Perhaps if he could convince Dean to buy something, the man would leave, and Castiel could go on making his pies in peace.

   “Well,” he said, “we have a wide variety of fresh pies, but classic cherry seems to be the most popular, if I may recommend you.”

   An almost sad look crossed Dean’s face at those words. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Cherry’s my favourite.”

   Castiel would probably never know what prompted him to say what he said next. “There’s one in the oven at this moment. If you could just wait a little longer, I could pack that one for you.” But Dean’s eyes lit up and his demeanour softened a little as he nodded, and he couldn’t regret it. This happy surprise looked a lot better on Dean than the pure distrust that had been there moments earlier.

   And then he did regret it, because this meant that Dean had to wait another twenty minutes before the pie would even be finished baking, and then some more for it to cool. He considered telling the man he could come back in a certain period of time, but Dean had already dragged out a cheap plastic chair and sat down to wait. (Why those chairs and accompanying tables were there, Castiel did not know either. They weren’t comfortable, and everyone bought pies to take home anyway.)

   “So,” Dean said, somewhat awkwardly. “Aida still around?”

   “Yes. She lives just around the corner. She told me she wanted to make the most of her old age, but she regularly comes in to bake still.”

   Dean nodded, expression softening a little. Castiel wondered whether he’d been so hostile because he had been afraid the old lady might have died.

   Castiel desperately wanted to ask this man where he’d been for the past three years, as he believed there to be a story there. Yet at the same time, he didn’t want to pry. He had secrets about himself that he’d rather not disclose, either. Instead, he went to take a look at the pie.

   There was a set time for each pie to bake, after which it was at its best, and Castiel wouldn’t keep it in the oven for a single minute longer. It had taken him quite a while to find out just how long this set time had to be, and he’d discarded many a recipe before eventually settling on exact minutes. There were only a few of those minutes left, and it was a good excuse not to have to go back into the main shop for a while.

   Castiel wasn’t good at making conversation. In his three years here, he never had felt the urge to learn how to properly communicate with the humans of Merriam. Yet this wasn’t what was holding him back.

   He had never seen such a bright soul before.

*

   It took a week for the attractive man—Dean, Castiel remembered—to come back to the shop. Castiel had been spending the week perfecting his new recipe for three berry pie, which he’d made once or twice before but had never considered as one of the important basics to learn first. After three years, however, he had plenty of time to try new recipes sometimes.

   This time, he was actually in the shop itself when Dean entered, rearranging the few baking appliances they sold—all in 50’s style, to go with the shop’s interior. (Castiel knew perfectly well that it didn’t matter when people would be taking the supplies home with them anyway, but he liked being consistent.)

   “Can I help you?” he asked as he turned to face the customer he’d just heard entering

   It was the attractive, bright soul he’d met days earlier, and he was looking around the shop as though he wasn’t entirely sure what he had come here for. When the man didn’t reply, Castiel said, “I have been working on a new recipe this week. Would you like to try it?”

   He should just have shut his mouth and waited till the customer decided something by themselves, as per his policy. But Dean looked up and nodded. “Yeah, why not.”

   Castiel had a rule about pie tasting. People could come by on a specific day every other month and taste different kinds of pie, and not outside of that. He couldn’t offer free pie to everyone and risk them leaving without buying anything afterwards. His tastings had actually become quite popular over the years because of the great, free pie, but people usually bought something on those days anyway, so Castiel didn’t count it as a loss. He didn’t make pie for profit, anyway. He enjoyed the happiness it could bring people. At first, he’d used the tasting events to get his name out there in a positive light, because even though people had known Aida’s pie shop for years, they were wary of Castiel. He ended up liking the events so much, he kept hosting them.

   “It’s three-berry pie,” he said, even though Dean hadn’t asked.

   “Okay,” said Dean. He seemed a little wary of Castiel still.

   “I didn’t poison it. That would be very bad for business.”

   He wondered why he seemed incapable of acting normal. Dean just snorted and picked up the plate. “Didn’t think you had. That cherry pie was too good to be poisoned, too.” But he didn’t take a bite, nor did he go to sit down at the crappy table. Instead, he was looking at Castiel with a frown.

   Castiel frowned back. “Is something wrong?”

   “No,” said Dean, suddenly moving to sit down and eat his pie. “You should get proper booths here, y’know. Turn this into a place where someone can properly enjoy their food. And drinks. All we’ve got is a crappy Starbucks.”

   “I quite enjoy their coffee,” Castiel said, because that was the easiest part to reply to.

   “Not the point.” Dean finally took a bite of his pie and hummed contently. “This is great.”

   “Thank you.”

   “But you should add some crumble. Crumble’s good. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

   Castiel always took suggestions into account, so he wrote it down, more to have something to do with his hands than because he actually needed it to remember. “Thank you,” he said again, seriously.

   Dean stared at him and shrugged.

*

   It became a bit of a routine after that. Dean came by the pie shop every Thursday, and they never talked much, but Castiel gave Dean a different pie sample every week, and in turn Dean gave suggestions and bought pie every now and then.

   It was the closest relationship Castiel had yet had with a human being except for perhaps Aida, and he tried not to think how that was kind of sad. He’d never let his lack of human relationships bother him before.

   “So why pie?” Dean asked the fifth week he came by. He was wearing a scowl on his face and looked like he had difficulty walking when he came in, but both of them stubbornly kept their unspoken agreement of not talking about things beyond the pie shop and other superficial things.

   Castiel shrugged, a decidedly human gesture he’d picked up over the years. There hadn’t been a particular reason he’d chosen pie to make for a living, of all things, except perhaps the fact that Lady Aida had been willing to take him in and teach him.

   Dean seemed to get this, because he said, “Right, because you can’t do anything else?”

   Castiel blinked at the vicious tone. “Perhaps,” he said quietly. “I enjoy it. I have found that pie makes people happy.” He looked away.

   “Shit, I’m sorry.” Dean sighed. “I’ve had a really shitty day, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Hell, you’ve given me free pie.” He gestured wildly with his fork, sending crumbs flying all over the white tiled floor.

   “You’re allowed to have a bad day, Dean.”

   “Yeah, well, it ain’t your fault.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but refrained from doing so at the very last moment.

   “What happened?”

   Dean grimaced. “People being assholes.” He didn’t elaborate, and Castiel got the feeling he didn’t want to, so he didn’t pry. He just nodded and pretended to be busying himself behind the counter, which was a feat in itself, as it was clear to anyone that there actually wasn’t anything to do at the moment. Castiel was quite grateful when a customer entered the shop.

   “Hello, Ellen.”

   “Castiel.” The woman smiled at him, then turned to Dean. “Dean. Should I have been expecting you here?”

   Dean smirked and gestured at his pie, which he had yet to finish. (He’d later confess to Castiel that chocolate was one of the very few flavours he didn’t care a whole lot for. “Pie, Ellen.”

   “Thought so. How are you, Winchester?”

   “Same old.”

   It was such a blatant lie that even Castiel picked up on it. By the way Ellen pursed her lips as she looked at Dean, she had, too. “You come by the Roadhouse sometime soon, you hear me? We miss you.”

   Dean looked away. “Sure will.”

   “Can I have a whole apple pecan pie?” Ellen asked Castiel, not taking her eyes off Dean. “It’s Jo’s birthday tomorrow.” She stressed the last part a little, and Castiel wondered whether it had been to indirectly remind Dean of the date, before turning her focus back on Castiel. “You’re welcome to come by, if you want.”

   “I’ll think about it.” He wouldn’t. Castiel preferred not to socialize, because while humans may be unperceptive—he had been living here for three years without any of them suspecting anything past that first night, after all—he also didn’t want to give them any excuses not to be.  

   He wasn’t good with people. He had no backstory he could talk about, and his everyday life consisted only of baking pies and, sometimes, making small talk with customers. He’d had to learn how to do that, too.

   He got Ellen the requested pie. As she paid for it, she told him, “You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to. But I thought it’d be nice, getting outta here for once. You seem like a good guy, Cas. Don’t get lonely.”

   Her soul was a good one, Castiel thought.

   “You,” Ellen said, louder as she turned away from the counter, “better be there, Winchester. We’re not letting you mope around for much longer, ya hear?”

   “I’m not moping.”

   “No, you’ve been a bright ray of sunshine.”

   Dean scowled.

   Ellen’s face softened. “I get that it’s hard on you, Dean, but it’s not the end of the world. Don’t let it be that for you.”

   She stalked away before Dean could reply. Dean, for his part, looked at Castiel challengingly, as though daring him to ask what she’d been talking about. Castiel didn’t ask. He could see the scars on Dean’s soul and knew that when something had scarred so deeply, it was sometimes better not to ask. Instead, he said, “Ellen is a good woman. She means well.”

   Dean drew a hand over his face and sighed. “I know.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m not a friggin’ charity case, though.”

   “Nor did she claim you were. People caring about you does not make you a charity case. They worry about you.”

   “Yeah, well, they shouldn’t.”

   Judging by the shadows under Dean’s eyes, Castiel would disagree with that. “That’s not up to you to decide, I am afraid. It’s what loved ones are wont to do.”

   Dean didn’t reply. He was looking at Castiel like he’d just realized something and was internally conflicted whether he should say it or not. “How about your loved ones, Cas?”

   Castiel looked away, because he had no immediate reply to that.

   “I’m sorry,” Dean said, looking pained. “I shouldn’t’ve—”

   He made to stand up, but Castiel held up a hand. “It’s alright. You aren’t the first to wonder.” But he was the first to ask, and it had caught Castiel off guard.

   “Doesn’t make it less rude to ask.”

   He did get up this time, and Castiel didn’t stop him. His family wasn’t something he liked to talk about, and he couldn’t, anyway. But before Dean could step out the door, he asked, “Will you be at Jo Harvelle’s birthday, tomorrow?”

   Dean shrugged. “Maybe.”

   “Then maybe I’ll see you there.”

   And that was how Castiel, for the first time since he’d arrived in Merriam, found himself among people at Jo Harvelle’s birthday party Friday evening, making polite conversation with a strange man with a mullet called Ash. Ash inexplicably took Castiel for someone who understood technology, which didn’t help Castiel’s already rusty people skills. Then again, it was probably a feat in itself that the man still knew anything about technology, as Castiel got the strong impression that he was ‘high’.

   “It’s good to see you here, Castiel,” Jo interrupted Ash out of the blue. “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen you outside that pie shop.”

   “I don’t have much reason to go out,” Castiel answered, accepting the beer he was being offered with a frown. He never had a beer before.

   “That’s because you refuse to have social contact with anyone,” Jo said wisely. “I don’t think mom actually thought you’d come. Not that you’re not welcome—” she added quickly, “it’s just… you’re so reserved. Nobody knows anything about you.”

   “I prefer not to talk too much about myself,” Castiel said, taking a sip of his beer. It tasted a little too bitter for his taste, but not too bad.

   “No, and you don’t have to. That was not what I meant.” She sighed. “We’re just…” Jo looked around, as though she was afraid someone would hear her next words. “We’re worried about you. Mom is, mostly. She’s afraid you don’t get enough social contact. You shouldn’t be on your own all the time.”

   “I appreciate the concern.” The words ‘it isn’t necessary’ that he didn’t want to say out loud hung in the air anyway.

   Jo was saved from answering when someone said loudly, “Look at that, if it isn’t the birthday girl! You’re getting old, Jo.”

   “Shut up, Dean, you’re still older,” Jo said without turning around, but her face split into a wide grin.

   “Don’t remind me.” His smirk turned a little softer. “Hey, Cas.”

   “Hello, Dean.”

   He couldn’t explain to himself the feeling of relief for seeing Dean here. Jo and Ellen appeared to be good people, and he wasn’t feeling as out of place here as he’d been expecting, but Dean’s presence was still a kind of comfort. Castiel didn’t like being around people. He’d regretted telling Dean he would be here the moment the man had left his shop. But it had seemed the right thing to say at the time, and he would not take it back.

   “It’s good to see you outside that shop of yours.”

   “You too,” Castiel said, because it was the best thing he could come up with and it was true. It was strange being among people in a setting he had not picked out himself, but he found it wasn’t necessarily bad. He thought perhaps he’d deprived himself of many experiences for nothing, these past years, but he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

   “I shouldn’t be surprised you guys have met,” Jo said, even though the surprise was unmistakeable in her voice. She leaned closer to Castiel and whispered conspiratorially, “Dean is addicted to pie.”

   “So I’ve noticed,” Castiel said, amused. His eyes, however, were fixed on Dean, the way they seemed drawn to the man whenever he was near.

   Jo finally smiled broadly and genuinely and pulled Dean into a hug. “I’m glad you came,” she told him.

   Dean cleared his throat and hugged her back awkwardly. “Thanks.”

   “I can’t believe it took you so long to come see me.” There was little accusation in her voice, but even Castiel could pick up on the hurt. She looked like she had a whole rant in her head that wanted to make its way out, but what she ended up saying was, “How are you?”

   “I’m fine.”

   “Don’t pull that bullshit on me, Winchester.”

   Cas had the feeling he was intruding on a conversation that wasn’t meant for his ears, yet he did not want to draw attention to himself by getting up and leaving out of the blue.

   “I said I’m _fine_ , Jo.”

   She shot Dean a look and seemed to decide to take a different approach. “How’s your leg?”

   Dean clenched his jaw. “Jo, I swear to god—”

   “Okay, okay, fine,” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Have you talked about this to anyone at all?”

   His silence spoke volumes.

   Jo just sighed and shook her head. “Well, you came all the way out here, and it’s my birthday, so we’re going to celebrate! Come on, Castiel—have you ever tried tequila shots?”

   Castiel, obviously, had not. They proved to be no match for him.

   Jo drank her shots the way Castiel assumed all adolescents did—with much enthusiasm, and little regard to how many was too many. Dean drank whiskey, and something told Castiel this wasn’t an exception but rather a rule.

   He wasn’t sure how long they’d been at it when Ellen cleared up the bar in front of them and forbade any of them to drink any more alcohol. Jo complained that she was finally allowed now, but her mother did not budge.

   “You get Winchester home safe, you hear me?” she told Castiel in a low voice.

   “Yes ma’am.”

   She rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you before—call me Ellen.”

   “Yes, Ellen.”

   Getting Dean home wasn’t as easy as it sounded. The man kept insisting he wasn’t drunk, that he could drive perfectly fine, and that he hardly needed a babysitter to get him home, thanks very much. It took Castiel twice as long as it should normally have to arrive at Dean’s doorstep with him.

   “Thanks,” Dean said grudgingly as he fumbled with his keys.

   “It was no problem,” Castiel said quietly, wondering whether it was a good idea at all to say what he wanted to say next. “I’m glad I went out tonight,” he admitted. Other than his extreme tolerance for alcohol, no one had noticed anything strange about him, which had come as a surprise. “Perhaps we could… do something like it again sometime.”

   Dean stared at him. “What, like a date?”

   He hadn’t meant it as such. He’d been under the impression that many humans were not too keen on the idea of two males going on dates together. “If that is what you want,” he said cautiously.

   He didn’t want to admit that it came as a surprise to him Dean didn’t shoot him down right away. Instead, the man looked contemplative for what felt like a very long time. “Alright,” he said finally. “Why the hell not.”

   The man didn’t sound like he’d quite convinced himself, but Castiel would take it.

*

   Dean took him to The Roadhouse again, this time when barely anyone was around, because he claimed they had “the best burgers you have ever tasted, Cas, I promise.” Castiel didn’t doubt this, as he had in fact never tasted burgers before. He deemed it best not to admit this to Dean, though.

   Jo wasn’t around this time, and Ellen left them alone after a short chat while taking their orders. Castiel was grateful for that. He had the feeling Dean wasn’t a big fan of crowds, and despite the fact that Jo’s birthday hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected, he preferred one-on-one interactions himself as well.

   So they talked, much in the same way they used to when they sat in Castiel’s pie shop, except Dean seemed more open here. He didn’t necessarily speak more, but his face became that much more expressive as they sat there having burgers and pie (“Yours is way better, man,” Dean assured him when Ellen was out of earshot). Castiel drank coffee, which he had found himself liking, and Dean was sipping slowly from a beer.

   Castiel took Dean to buy ingredients for his pies, and he could sense the other man found it weird, but Dean never said anything. He did start helping out in the shop more after that, even though it was only half an afternoon at most.

   They went to the movies once or twice, eating something sticky called popcorn in the dark. Castiel liked these dates best. Once, Dean had interwoven their fingers, and the warmth of it had been enjoyable. Of course, Castiel knew there was more to human intimacy than that, but he didn’t feel the urge to try it, and apparently, neither did Dean, because he never tried any more.

   “I can’t believe you don’t even know where to get the good stuff,” Dean said when they were having pizza in the middle of the closed pie shop one night. He didn’t look quite comfortable sitting on the ground, but when Castiel asked, he waved it off. “You’ve lived here for three years, Cas.”

   “It just didn’t seem necessary,” he answered through a mouthful of pepperoni pizza.

   Dean stared at him like he wanted to say something, but seemed to think better of it. He just shook his head and stuffed more pizza into his mouth.

   It was the type of thing Castiel had never imagined himself doing. He had arrived in this town without any plans, or even any ideas where he had ended up at. When the opportunity arose to stay, he took it, deciding not to intrude on anyone’s life lest they were scared off once they found out the truth. Part of him was regretting that now, wondering if he could have had such moments as this far sooner.

   Then again, there had always been something about Dean. There were times when they barely spoke at all, but for some reason it was nice to be in the same room even if they didn’t talk. Dean wasn’t a man of many words, and neither was Castiel. Still, he knew all about Dean’s favourite music (“I’m telling you, Zeppelin tops everyone else”) and his favourite movies (“Star Wars, Cas, how do you not know Star Wars?”). He knew Dean had been in the marines, like his father, although that was something the man had accidentally let slip.

   He knew too much, but he knew too little—there was something about Dean that had Castiel wanting to know everything there was to know about him. The thought should scare him, but it didn’t.

   “Well,” Dean said after a while, trying to hoist himself up off the ground. “Guess it’s time to go, huh.”

   He promptly fell back down.

   “Dean?” Cas asked softly but worriedly, getting up in an instant.

   “I’m fine, ‘s nothing.”

   Castiel had noticed Dean walk uncomfortably before, but he was well aware that Dean wouldn’t appreciate any questioning, so he never had.

   “My leg’s just stiff,” Dean snapped, feeling Castiel’s stare on him. He got up somewhat more gingerly this time, holding himself up on the plastic table next to him. “Yeah?”

   “Dean. I’m not going to let you walk home that way.”

   “I said I’m _fine_.”

   “You’re not,” Cas said quietly. “I have a spare room upstairs. Please, Dean, I’m not comfortable letting you leave when you can hardly stand.”

   “If you wanted me to stay the night, you coulda just said so.” He tried for joking, but judging by the look on his face he was hurting. Castiel just wished Dean would stop being so stubborn. “Dean. I’m serious.”

   “Alright, fine!”

   And so he found himself gathering pyjama bottoms and a toothbrush for Dean to borrow, and sheets to put on the mattress that was never used, and Dean took it all and rushed into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change while Castiel laid out the sheets and wondering what to do next.

   He was still standing there when Dean re-entered the room, jumping a little. “Are you planning on standing there all night?” he said grouchily, “because I ain’t gonna get much sleep that way.”

   “Right,” Cas said. “Sorry.”

   Dean was visibly uncomfortable, getting into bed and pulling the sheets over himself as fast as he could. So Castiel retreated into his own room, finish the book he had been reading. He considered buying some DVDs soon, because there was nothing on TV at night except near-naked ladies telling him to call them, and they made him quite uncomfortable. Perhaps he could even ask Dean to watch movies with him someday. It was one of those other things that Dean didn’t understand Castiel had never done.

   There were a lot of firsts since he’d come to know Dean Winchester.

 


	2. The Second Part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for kudos and comments so far <3 I appreciate them!

   Here’s the thing: Dean kinda liked Cas.

   Hell, he’d known coming back to this place wasn’t going to be easy—for once in his life, he thought he would’ve liked the anonymity that came with a bigger city. Being here meant dealing with the people who he’d known for his whole life, and he knew they meant well but it was more exhausting than anything he wanted to deal with.

   But with Cas, Dean just kept coming back.

   Perhaps it was because Cas hadn’t known him before all this shit went down, or that he didn’t force Dean to talk when he didn’t feel like it. Which was all great, sure, but he didn’t exactly _want_ these feelings. He was having a hard enough time keeping their old friends off his back as it was, without having to tell them, _So you know how I always took girls home before? Yeah, I’m kinda interested in men that way as well._

   (There was a voice in his head that sounded frustratingly like Sam saying none of their friends would actually mind, and Dean was pretty sure the voice was right, but that didn’t override the memories of John Winchester’s voice making him believe the exact opposite.)

   Not that it mattered. Cas hadn’t expressed any interest in him that way, unless you count that time he lingered in the bedroom when he made Dean stay overnight—but Dean didn’t count that, because it didn’t feel like that was actually what was going on. Looking back, he was pretty sure Cas had just been legitimately worried.

   And then, of course, there was that whole thing where Dean couldn’t remember the last time he felt any desire to have sex at all, anymore, even if he did find Cas attractive as hell. Because he was fucking pathetic, apparently.

   “You’re doing it again.”

   Dean was pulled out of his thoughts by his brother’s actual voice, paired with a by now well-known bitchface. “Yeah. Sorry.” He took a bite of the salad Sam insisted he ate, because bitching about Dean’s diet was one of his little brothers’ favourite things to do, and apparently Dean looked ‘like crap’.

   “Dean, c’mon. Talk to me. This isn’t you.”

   Wasn’t it, though? Sam had seen him after he got back, was there every step of the way—even took Dean in the first few months after his discharge from the hospital, but he didn’t get that the way Dean acted then was not him acting out. Sam hadn’t seen the things Dean had. “Sammy, come on. You’re only here for a week. Let’s not do this.”

   “Which means I’m gonna have to deal with your grumpy ass for a whole week,” Sam shot back. “Tell me at least you’ve gone out and talked to people.”

   “I’m not a hermit, Sam.”

   “Coulda fooled me.” Sam narrowed his eyes. “You could bring the chair if walking is really that much of a bother.”

   Dean sighed. “I can walk just fine.” Which was true, to an extent. Sure, he wouldn’t be running a marathon anytime soon, but it was a small town, and small distances weren’t that terrible. “There’s a new guy in town that took over from Aida. You should try the pie.”

   He was pretty sure Sam rolled his eyes at the word ‘pie’, but whatever.

   “Sure.” _If it’d make you happy,_ Dean heard in the silence after that reply.

   _Yeah, it would._

*

   The first time Dean tried one of Castiel’s pies, it was when he came barging into the pie shop after just having returned to town. He’d wanted to hate the weird new guy for taking Aida’s place, because it was a change from what Dean had always known and despite everything, despite his fear (and knowledge) that it wouldn’t, he’d so hoped everything could go back to what it had been before. But he guessed he couldn’t expect as much after three years, anyway. At least it had come as a huge relief to hear that the elderly lady hadn’t passed away in Dean’s absence, just retired. Dean could still remember a time when a trip to the bakery with his mum had been the biggest treat in the world, and Aida’s promises she’d teach him some of her recipes one day.

   But that was before Mary Winchester had died from cancer and Dean had had to take over as head of the family at the tender age of thirteen, their dad barely being home so he could put in as many hours as possible to provide for them and deal with hospital- and funeral bills.

   Dean had baked cookies with Mary, once. He’d burned them, but they were still the best cookies he could ever remember eating.

   But now there was Castiel, and he seemed nice enough, but also a bit of a weirdo. Other than the stories Dean had heard of his arrival three years ago, that is. Old Carter had happily told Dean this Castiel was some sort of cocaine junkie who no one should pay too much attention, because that was what he was looking for.

   It didn’t seem to Dean like Castiel was looking for much of anything, least of all drugs.

   It looked like he was hiding.

   The guy had come out of his shell by now, though. Still hesitant, but he seemed more open with Dean than Dean knew him to be with anybody else. And if that was true the other way round as well, nobody had to know.

   He should be glad to be home. The Winchesters had lived in Kansas for as long as anyone could remember. Mary Campbell was from Lawrence, and the family had lived there for a short while before moving back after Mary’s premature death. Old Carter claimed he’d known the family for several generations, but how much truth was in that statement was anyone’s guess. He certainly seemed to be old enough.

   But Mary and John were dead, and Sam had moved on to bigger and better things in friggin’ California of all places, and certainly when Dean just got back to this place it no longer felt like home. There were still Ellen and Jo, and Bobby Singer—who was, in fact, a hermit, but who Dean loved like a father anyway—but returning here had just felt _wrong_. It was one of the reasons he barely left his house even if he did know almost everyone in this town.

   Truth was, Dean had had nowhere else to go.

   “Do you… regret coming back?” Sam asked, sounding like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to ask. “I mean, you were always at the Roadhouse before, but Ellen says she’s barely seen you since you got back.”

   “No,” Dean said, because in the end, he didn’t. He wouldn’t have felt at home anywhere else in the world, either, and despite that he’d barely seen his extended family since he came back, it was a nice thought that they were there if he could get himself to face them.

   “Does it…” There was a short silence telling Dean to prepare for whatever it was his brother was going to say. “Does it have anything to do with this pie shop we’re heading to?”

   “No,” Dean said again, in a flat tone.

   Sam smirked. “So… great pie, huh?”

   “Sammy, I swear, if you don’t shut the hell up…”

   “Alright, alright.” He was still smirking, Dean could _sense_ it, so he resolutely didn’t look at his brother. He fucking hated when Sam was right. He hated it more because he hadn’t told anyone about his maybe-not-so-hetero-sexuality, not even his brother, and the thought that Sam would find out somehow made him want to throw up.

   They arrived before he could think about it too much, though, and seeing Sam’s eyes light up like a kid’s made it at least partly worth it. “I haven’t been here in _ages_ ,” he said excitedly, pushing open the door before Dean even had the chance to reply. “It hasn’t changed a bit, has it?”

   “Eh,” Cas said from behind the counter. “Hello.”

   “You must be the new guy!” Sam said, far too bright for Dean’s liking. “I hear you make the best pies in town.”

   Cas frowned. “I make the only pies in this town.”

   Dean rolled his eyes. “Take the compliment, Cas.”

   “Hello, Dean.” He sounded surprised, like he hadn’t noticed Dean yet behind his gigantic brother. “I assume this is Sam, then.” They’d talked about the younger Winchester’s visit a few times, because Dean couldn’t help but feel damn nervous about it (and wasn’t that a joke, being nervous to see his own brother?), and Cas didn’t seem like the person to judge him for it.

   “That’s me,” Sam agreed, holding out a hand for Cas to shake. “And you are?”

   Cas stared at the proffered hand for a moment before seeming to realize he was supposed to shake it. “Castiel. I run the pie shop now.”

   “So I’ve heard.”

   Dean groaned internally. They were making it sound like he’d been gushing about both of them to the other, and fine, maybe he had, a little, but come on.

   There was nobody else in the pie shop, so Sam took the opportunity to ask Cas some questions while Dean wandered around the shop like he was seeing it for the first time, pretending not to listen to the conversation. It didn’t seem to go anywhere uncomfortable, though. Cas sounded a little distant, but Dean remembered him sounding the same when they first met. Hell, Dean had been distant when they first met. He’d been angry with himself and with the world and with this weird new guy who had taken over from his favourite person in town, and ready to give him a piece of mind for all of it.

   He’d been a freakin’ jerk, to be honest.

   Sam and Cas seemed to hit it off, though, which wasn’t really a surprise because Sam could hit it off with anyone, especially people Dean had been a jerk to before.

   “C’mon, Sammy, let the guy bake in peace,” Dean said after a while, winking at the pie maker.

   “Right. Sorry.”

   “It is no bother,” Cas said in a pleasant tone. “You are as welcome as your brother to come in anytime you like.”

   “Thanks,” Sam replied with a smile. “And maybe it’s a bit late, but… welcome to town, Cas.”

   They left with an assortment of pie slices, naturally, because Dean told his brother he had to try them all, and made good on his word by getting twelve slices in six different tastes, neatly arranged in a box in the shape of a whole pie. Sam would’ve rolled his eyes had it not been for the huge grin on his brother’s face as they left. It was something he’d almost started to forget the look of.

   “Nice guy,” he said instead.

   “He gives me free pie,” Dean pointed out, as if that sealed the deal. In fact, knowing him, it probably had.

   “The amount of pie you eat, I’m surprised he’s not out of business yet.”

   “Shut up, Sasquatch, or I’m eating your pie too. Which I paid for, by the way.”

   Sam smirked. “There’s something about this Cas guy, though, don’t you think?”

   “Like what?” said Dean, a little too fast and snappy. Sam would say something about it, except—well, Dean had been acting out ever since he got back. The Dean Sam had seen today was the happiest in what felt like ages. He could damn well deal with one snappy comment.

   “Can’t put my finger on it.”

   “Real helpful.”

   “Dean, c’mon.”

   “Cut it out, Sam.”

   Neither of them said anything again until they got to Dean’s apartment.

   “It sucks, okay?” Dean said eventually. “It still hurts sometimes even though _nothing’s there_. And the—y’know, that thing, I can’t even go a full day on it.”

   “Rehabilitation takes time,” Sam said softly. “Longer for some people than others. Though it’d help if you put in some more effort in PT.”

   “Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You don’t have to live with it.”

   “No,” Sam agreed. “And I can’t make it better. But you can. You’re the only one who can. And that means more than seeing a physical therapist every now and then.”

   Dean knew his brother was right. His attitude wasn’t helping shit, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to be positive about this whole situation. Yes, he had to get out more. No, sitting on a sofa eating junk food wasn’t going to make the stiffness in his leg go away, and the required exercises (because he’d like to say he at least tried) weren’t enough on their own to be able to do everything he used to do.

  But that was exactly the problem—he’d never again be able to do everything he used to do. He was missing a goddamn leg. He’d dedicated his life to the marines only to be honourably discharged in his late twenties. Find something else to do with your life, you’re no use to us anymore. Sorry ‘bout the leg, though, just do all these shitty exercises with it all the time and it’ll be somewhat better in a few months.

   He needed to pick up his life, find something else he wanted to do with it. But hell, there wasn’t anything else he was good at, was there? He could follow orders and deal with dangerous situations just fine, but what else had he ever had going for him?

   “It’s shit,” was all he said.

   “Yeah,” Sam agreed.

*

   Sam’s visit went by fast, and at the same time not fast enough.

   Don’t take this the wrong way—Dean loved his brother more than anyone. But Sam liked talking about things. Like their lives were a damn chick-flick and talking about feelings would make everything magically better. _“It’s your attitude, Dean! You’re not even trying!”_

   Screw that. He wasn’t up for trying. Sam had no fucking idea about anything, and Dean wished he’d realize that and shut the hell up, but Sam Winchester was nothing if not persistent.

   That said, his mind was stuck on this conversation where Cas had mentioned the possibility of taking up Dean’s suggestion of making the pie shop more inviting for people to sit down for a drink and a slice of baked goods, and Sam enthusiastically stating how much Dean had always liked fixing things.

   _“This place doesn’t need to be_ fixed _, Sam. It’s not fucking broken. Cas is just suggesting a tune-up.”_

Sam had just shot him a significant look that made Dean want to punch him in his stupid face. Like Dean and the shop were comparable when Dean actually _was_ fucking broken.

   He didn’t say that in front of Cas, though. The guy had no idea, and Dean liked to keep it that way. At least this way he’d be spared the pitying looks he got from everybody else.

   So he said yes instead.

   It wasn’t that Cas was planning on making him refurbish the whole place; the floor and the new booths would be laid and installed first before they could even start painting and redecorating anything else. And Cas had asked several times if Dean really wished to help. He’d given his word now though, hadn’t he? Going back on that would just fuck things up more. Cas might pry and find out about Dean’s _thing_ , and there was really nothing Dean wanted any less in the world right then.

   It didn’t seem to be so bad at first. At least having something to do that wasn’t watching terrible medical dramas and eating junk food took his mind off things, even more than being with Cas usually already did. He just hadn’t expected a paint job to be so intensive. Shit, he’d dared think he’d actually been getting used to the whole leg think—physically, anyway—but this was like he’s getting back to zero.

   “Are you alright?” Cas asked, sounding like he was coming from a great distance.

   “Fine.”

   “You don’t look fine.”

   “I said I was, didn’t I?”

   Cas sighed and put his roller down, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Dean… you are in discomfort. I promise you the paint is not more important than you are.”

   “Dammit, Cas, can you ever just leave things be?” He was just making things worse, and he knew it, but all he wanted was for things to be like they were before. When physical work didn’t make his leg ache. When he didn’t have exercises he should try to do more regularly rather than sulking. When he could function like a normal human being.

   “No,” Cas said resolutely. “I cannot. Sit down.”

   “Goddammit, Cas,” Dean repeated.

   “I said, sit down, Dean.”

   He did. The booths were covered with sheet so the paint wouldn’t ruin them before they even got in use, and it was weird to drop his ass on them anyway.

   “I asked you to help because you seem passionate about this place, and because I thought having something on your hands might be good for you. Not so you could work yourself to pieces.” Dean couldn’t figure out whether he was angry or not. “Dean, please. I have known you for months now. We talk often, but you never breach any serious topics. I’m not asking you to do so now, but—if you will not tell me what happened, then at least show me you’re taking care of yourself.”

   Dean laughed bitterly. He hadn’t taken proper care of himself since it happened. Sure, talking to Cas each week kept him grounded. The visits were something he had soon found himself looking forward to, the only thing he found himself looking forward to. He went to the Roadhouse sometimes more out of obligation than because he really wanted to, to show Ellen and Jo that he was still alive and kicking, but he was pretty sure just that…

   Wouldn’t have been enough.

   He felt like shit even thinking it. Ellen and Jo cared about him. Bobby Singer did, who called him every now and then to gruffly ask how he was doing. Sam cared about him.

   Cas was different, though.

   “I just want to…” He let out another hollow laugh. “To not be broken, I guess.”

   Cas frowned. “Dean…”

   But Dean just rolled up his pant leg as far as it would go and gestured at the result. “There’s a whole chunk of me missing, alright? I have to see someone to help me use my legs properly again like I’m a fucking toddler. How isn’t that messed up?”

   “Does it hurt often?” Cas asked quietly.

   “Nah. It… It took a while to get used to, but it doesn’t get this bad a lot. I’m not sure why it’s acting up now. Figures, I guess.” He dropped his pant leg again so it covered the unnatural material. “Just when I’m trying to have a normal life again. Just when I’m with the one person who wasn’t judging me because he didn’t know.”

   Cas frowned. “I would not judge you for it regardless, Dean, and I doubt your brother or your friends at the Roadhouse do either.” He sat down opposite Dean. “Can I ask… how it happened?”

   “Marines.” Dean shrugged. “Fuckin’ bomb splinters wedged themselves so far in it couldn’t be saved.”

   Cas didn’t look like he thought that was a sufficient explanation, but at least he didn’t pry. He probably didn’t want to know. It wasn’t a pleasant story. Besides, it had been Dean’s own fault anyway. If only he’d realized—

   At least he got Kevin out of the line of fire. He didn’t mind taking the brunt of it if it meant he got out of it alright.

   “Alright,” Cas nodded. He didn’t say anything else, just got up and started putting away the supplies they’d been using.

   “What are you—”

   “I think we have done enough for today. If you’d like, we can go upstairs and watch a movie. I can throw some Mac ‘n Cheese together for dinner.”

   “Are you going to be babying me?” Dean snarled.

   “No. I recognize that we have been working all day, and that you need some rest. I enjoy spending time with you. I thought we might make use of the situation and, as they say, ‘call it a day’.”

   “Dammit, Cas,” Dean said again.

   “If you truly want to, we can go on. But it is late afternoon, and we have hardly taken any breaks. I think it would be alright if we stop a little early and do something entertaining instead.”

   Dean felt himself slump in his spot, like his body was already giving in to Cas’s suggestion and his mind wasn’t far behind. “Alright, fine.”

   “Fine?”

   “Fine. We’ll just pretend we did enough today so that the cripple doesn’t have to feel bad about himself.”

   “Don’t be stupid,” Cas said.

   “Yeah, ‘cause that’s not what everybody else is like, either. _Poor Dean, his life is ruined now._ ” Dean laughed bitterly. “I guess they’re not wrong, though.”

   “The only one who thinks that is yourself,” Cas said, and it was nearly impossible for Dean to figure out the tone of his voice.

   “Yeah, right.”

   “You do not seem to me a person who accepts a bad fate that way.”

   “You don’t know shit about me, then.”

   Sam had had the guts, once in the very beginning, to call it _depression_. Dean had thrown a (mostly) empty beer bottle at his head. He’d also called it PTSD, which isn’t actually unlikely, just not something Dean so much as wants to think about. If he drinks enough at night, he can keep the nightmares at bay. It’s fucking fine. He’s not fucking ill.

   “How much effort have you put into your revalidation?”

   “Shut up, Cas,” Dean snapped. “I ain’t here because I’m looking for a therapist.”

   Cas looked like he was about to argue, but then he seemed to think better of it. His shoulders sagged a bit and he asked, “Would you still be agreeable to takeout and a movie?”

   Neither of them knew about the events this would lead to. If they had, neither of them would perhaps have agreed to it. As it was, no species in the wide galaxy had the power of seeing the future, let alone a measly human such as Dean Winchester, and so he begrudgingly said yes.

 

 


	3. The Third Part

   Chinese takeout, Castiel had decided a while ago, was a good invention. Not as good as burgers or pie, but it ranked high up there. It tasted even better when Dean was sitting next to him, not truly relaxed but enough to let Castiel sit close enough to him on the sofa that their knees were pressing into each other. It did perhaps help that he was sitting on the side of Dean’s good leg.

   “I’m just sick of feeling like I’m not. Y’know. Whole,” Dean said finally, not taking his eyes off the Winter Soldier fighting Steve and Natasha with his smooth metal arm.

   “You are whole,” Cas said.

   “I’m missing half a leg, Cas.”

   “And it does not have to stop you from doing things you want to do. Humans are very adaptive, as far as I know. You just have to set your mind to it.”

   “You sound like Sam.”

   “I do not think that is a bad thing.”

   Dean sighed. “Look, I appreciate it, but you guys didn’t wake up in a hospital with pains in a place that no longer fucking existed, being told that the thing you would’ve dedicated your life to is no longer attainable, okay? So don’t try to tell me that’s _alright_.”

   “I suppose it is not,” Castiel agreed, who could very much relate to having something one dedicated a large portion of their life to getting ripped away from him, but could not say so for reasons you and I would not understand. “So you find something new to dedicate your life to.”

   Dean looked like he was about to say something snappy, but then he frowned. “Like a pie shop.”

   Castiel nodded. “Like a pie shop.”

   “I never thought to ask—”

   “I never thought to tell,” he interrupted the man. “All I want is to make sure you know that starting over is not easy, but it does work out, in the end. The effort we put into this shop, I never expected to put into anything like this.”

   He could see Dean wasn’t convinced, but at the very least the man said, “I guess I could go see a physical therapist again. See if I didn’t ruin myself too much further.”

   It was a nice thought that he might.

   It was decidedly less nice when someone started throwing pebbles at the window and that someone was soon discovered to be Gabriel. Gabriel looked like a short man with a mischievous face even though he was actually older than Castiel, and they were, in a sense, brothers. Or, to be more exact, he called Castiel ‘bro’, a slang the younger man did not particularly like.

   This time, however, when Cas opened the window, all Gabriel said was “You better let me in, we got a problem.” He sounded serious enough that Castiel hurried downstairs to do so without even reacting to Dean’s questions that followed him.

   He hadn’t seen Gabriel for over three blissfully normal years. The fact that his brother was here could only mean one thing.

   “They’re here,” was the first thing Gabriel said once he was inside and the doors were closed again, confirming these uncomfortable thoughts.

   “How?”

   “Sheer dumb luck, is my guess.” The grim line of Gabriel’s mouth was uncharacteristic and ugly in the sense that it didn’t belong there. Up until about four Earth years ago Castiel had never seen it. Now, not everybody liked this about Gabriel—it was difficult to enjoy someone’s trickster ways when chances were always high you were the centre of this joke or the next, after all. This, however? Surely taking the brunt of a joke was better than this.

   But ‘this’ was not something even Gabriel would joke about.

   ‘This’ was also the reason Castiel had not dared to establish any social contact for the first three years in town.

   All of this happened in only a few seconds before Castiel turned to move upstairs.

   “What—we have no time, we gotta go.”

   “We will make time,” Castiel said, more harshly than he had probably meant to.

   Gabriel gave him a long look before he sighed. “Oh, Cassie.”

   He understood. Or rather, he did not understand at all, but he knew what was going on.

   Indeed, when he arrived upstairs after Castiel, he found a man scowling at his brother. “…hell, Cas? You just run off without a word and then come back minutes later to say we gotta run? Which, in case you forgot, I _can’t_ do?”

   “I was not speaking literally—”

   “Oh, _now_ you get that nuance, like it matters—”

   “I’m sorry to interrupt this lovers’ quarrel,” Gabriel said loudly, “but it would be smart to move soon.”

   “Then fucking go!”

   “Dean—”

   Gabriel didn’t have a clue why his brother was so concerned with an irrational human like this Dean fella, but he didn’t have the patience to deal with it.

   He stepped forward, grabbed both their arms, and transported them out.

   “What the _fuck_ ,” Dean said angrily. “What the— where the hell are we?” He turned to Gabriel, his scowl even deeper now than it had been. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

   “Whoa, watch your language there,” Gabriel said, unable to hide a smirk. “It would do you well to start asking that last question a little earlier from now on. Name’s Gabriel, since you asked so nicely. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but so far it really hasn’t been.”

   “Fuck you,” Dean said.

   “Not the likes of you, thanks very much.”

   “Gabriel, please,” Castiel said. “Be civil. This will be a lot to take in.” He shot the human a look. “You too, Dean.”

   “Fine,” Dean said, sounding like a five-year-old who thought nothing was fine at all in the world. “Where are we?”

   “This,” Gabriel gestured proudly, “is my ship.” Or part of it, anyway. They were currently in the control room, which incidentally also functioned as a living room, meaning the curved wall on one side of the room was covered in buttons and lights and windows, and the other three were gleaming white with furniture everywhere in the middle and two silver doors on opposite sides.

   Dean, of course, was only interested in the curved wall and its windows. “What kind of elaborate shit joke is this?”

   “That would have been a good one,” Gabriel said, because it would have been his style. “But I’m afraid it isn’t. A joke. And that’s pretty shit indeed.”

   “Hey, no touching!” a new voice suddenly sounded clearly despite the fact that no fourth person had entered the room. Dean hastily drew back his hand in shock. “I’m trying to steer this ship safely and properly, you ape.”

   “Balthazar,” Gabriel smirked, “meet Dean, Earth’s moodiest human. Dean, Balthazar, the galaxy’s moodiest AI.”

   “A—”

   “AI, yes. What, you thought humans were advanced in technology?”

   “I’m on a spaceship.”

   “Oh, yes. Didn’t Cassie tell you?”

   Castiel, although never very talkative, had been suspiciously silent all this time. He was just looking at Dean apologetically. Well, in that case, Gabriel could almost understand the human’s shitty attitude. Couldn’t be nice to be thrown into something you didn’t believe in. He didn’t have time to feel bad, though, not in the current situation. He’d rather not have taken the man with them at all.

   “Dean,” Castiel said. “Please, sit down. I’ll explain all of this to you.”

   “You better,” Dean said, now making his way to an ugly blue sofa. “Next you’re telling me you’re aliens from the great beyond running from some great evil.”

   It was accurate enough that Castiel shot Gabriel an uneasy look. Both of them stayed quiet. No way was Gabriel gonna deal with all of this for his brother. It was Castiel’s own fault for fraternizing with idiots, really.

   “Oh, come on,” Dean said. “Aliens don’t exist, alright? Joke’s over. Time to go home and leave me alone.”

   “That’s my cue,” Gabriel said. “Good luck, bro.” He made his way to the sliding door on the right, into a much smaller room that housed the core of the AI. “Balth, what’s our current status?”

   “I think we managed to gain a few spacemiles by leaving before they realized where we were located,” Balthazar said. “They’ve probably already picked up on the signal by now, though. But we’re making good speed."

   “What would I do without you?”

   “Crash and burn. Probably literally.”

   “Screw you.”

   “Oh, you’d wish.”

   Gabriel at least managed not to flush. “Oh, shut up. Where’s Charlie?”

   “Having a strong cup of not-coffee.” Anyone would be able to hear the smirk in Balthazar’s voice. “I think she likes it more than she’s letting on.”

   The first time Charlie Bradbury was offered a cup of coffee on Gabriel’s ship, she’d pulled a face and loudly stated that whatever this hot liquid was, it was _not coffee._ Gabriel had been offended how anyone could possibly not like anything as sweet as his ship-brewed coffee, but the name stuck.

   He’d only shortly regretted agreeing to the woman’s demand to take her with him, and her apparent dislike of his coffee had been a big reason. (In all fairness, Gabriel—and most other non-humans—did not like Earthly humans very much, which of course hardly anyone could blame him for.)

   He went back through the ship’s main room, which was suspiciously quiet even though Dean and Castiel were still there. Gabriel had been expecting more yelling after Dean found out he’d been pulled into a ridiculous game of catch-and-run with the people Cas and Gabe used to share a planet with.

   He went out again through the door on the other side of the room. This one led to a hallway from where one could get to several bedrooms and what functioned as a kitchen and dining room, the latter of which was where he indeed found a red-haired human woman.

   “Are you ever planning on getting a normal coffee machine?” was her usual greeting.

   “What would be the fun in that?”

   She huffed and took a sip of the drink. “So how’d it go?”

   “He brought another idiot human aboard,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes.

   “Hey, I resent that.”

   “Sorry.”

   “No, you’re not.”

   She wasn’t wrong.

   “So, what, you’re getting me to talk to him?”

   “Cas is talking to him.”

   “I thought you said your brother was ‘the most socially awkward sapient I have ever had the misfortune to be related to.’ Your words, not mine.”

   Gabriel shrugged. “He seems to be doing alright with this one. Sure, I haven’t heard them exchange a single civil word to each other—or me—but the guy _was_ sitting in Cassie’s apartment when I found him.”

   “Ohh,” Charlie said. “Interesting.”

   Gabe had met Charlie at some party a few years ago—he was pretty sure it was called Comic Con—when they were both very drunk and she tried to explain to him all about something called Star Trek, which Gabriel found out later was only slightly complete and utter bullshit. When he started explaining to her the technicalities of actual space travel, she demanded he show her, and stupidly, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

   You’d think he’d be used to liquor by now, especially since Earth liquor was nothing compared to some other stuff he’d tried. Either way, it suddenly didn’t seem like such a great idea anymore when he was sober and had a bursting headache, but by then he was already stuck with her.

   Admittedly, there was something nice about having company that wasn’t Balthazar and his sassy bullshit—as much as he enjoyed that.

   Speaking of liquor, he could really use some right now. He got something out of the small fridge which looked suspiciously like a bottle of red win, but with a far higher alcohol percentage, and took a mouthful of alcohol straight from the bottle. “You know, I thought this crap would be over after Luci and Michael fought it out. Or after they didn’t, in the end. But no, some _other_ moron has to come up and blame us for a civil war _not_ happening. Who gets angry about that?” Another swig. “I liked Earth. I’m getting too old for this.”

   Charlie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, so you’ve told me. Hey, you think your brother and his boyfriend are done talking yet? I’d like to meet this other ‘idiot human’.”

   “Please do,” Balthazar cut in unhappily. “If I have to look at them having angry eye sex much longer, I’ll turn myself off, and I have an enemy fleet to outrun.”

*

   Charlie and Dean hit it off immediately, which Gabriel thought was probably worse than if they hadn’t. They talked about a whole lot of things that had _Star_ in the title and that were all equally inaccurate, and worse, when Gabriel entered the main room to hear them do so, Castiel was nowhere to be found.

   He didn’t have _time_ to deal with lovers’ spats.

   “Cas? Cassie?”

   “What do you want?” Cas growled even as he opened the door.

   “I take it the talk didn’t go well.”

   “Dean can be… difficult. He is adjusting.”

   “You know,” Gabriel said, equal parts of tiredness and annoyance in his voice, “I can’t say I really care all that much. Are _you_ adjusting?”

   “I am well accustomed to intergalactic travel.”

   “Yeah, and you hate it.” Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going to let me in, are you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, because he already knew what it would be. “I’ll just say it like this, then. How I found you back there—you seemed to have cut out a place for yourself on that planet, Cassie. I’m sorry all this had to happen. For what it’s worth, I’ll do everything in my power to get you and your human boyfriend back there safely, and you’ll never have to hear from me again.”

   “I care about you,” Castiel stated, as if he knew exactly that’s what Gabriel needed to hear. “But I appreciate that. Although I would not mind you ‘checking in’ sometimes, as they say.”

   He wouldn’t admit it was a comfort to hear that. Gabriel knew he could act like an ass sometimes—most of the time—but Cas was all he had. Well, sure, he had Balthazar, and Charlie, but Cas was the only one of his kind that he cared about. His only family. He wasn’t a touchy-feely kinda guy, but that wasn’t a rejection he would’ve dealt with lightly.

   Deciding not to comment on the actual air quotes Castiel used to make that statement, he just nodded. “Thanks, Cassie.” And left.

   “He’ll leave,” Balthazar said once Gabriel was back in the main room and had let down a shiny chrome wall in the middle to separate the controls from the sitting area. Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. “Yeah, he will.” He sighed. “Earth did the kid well, Balth. I can’t blame him for choosing that, however this situation will affect whatever he has going on with that Dean fella.”

   “You could leave, too.”

   “Not you.”

*

   They were woken up by something that could be likened to an earthquake.

   Gabriel—and Castiel—did not sleep the same way humans slept, and they weren’t on Earth, so it was just a comparison to make it easier to understand for everybody, but that was a close estimation.

   The positive side of this was that a being such as Gabriel did not experience grogginess. He did not wake up slowly, wondering what was going on. He was up and running to the control room in an instant, asking Balthazar frantically what was going on while opening all the viewscreens that would show him their surroundings in 360 degrees rather than just what he could see through what could best be described as the windscreen.

   “Change of tactics. The fleet is gone, but they’ve got something new—a sole ship—powered by… I’m not sure what. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I can’t do everything at once and making speed seemed more important.”

   Gabriel was well aware that Balthazar was not a god. He may seem omnipresent on the ship, but that’s because he _was_ the ship. The heart of it, anyway. It was still… disheartening to hear him say it like this, though.

   “Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”

   “I’m not a sapient.”

   “ _Balthazar_.”

   “There is no urgent damage,” Balthazar said grudgingly.

   “Urgent?”

   “What do you think shook you all out of your beds?”

   “So have Charlie look at it.”

   “While I’m all for helping out in a dire situation,” Charlie’s voice said from the direction of the door, “I’m a tech nerd, not a mechanic.”

   “Shit.”

   “Ask Dean,” Castiel’s gravelly voice said. “He’ll be ready in a minute.”

   “Dean’s a mechanic?”

   “He’s a war veteran,” said Castiel. “But I have gathered he knows a few things about cars.”

    _A few things about cars._ “For fuck’s sake, Cassie—”

   “You are needed here,” Cas said. “Charlie and I cannot do it. You can let Dean take a look, or leave it be for now. Balthazar said it wasn’t urgent.”

   “Fine.”

   The problem was, Balthazar—as he’d pointed out—was not a sapient, but he had the annoying tendency to play off things like one. Such as, calling damage to the ship ‘not urgent’ because the situation at hand was worse, not because the damage was light. He was an AI, he cared only about the bigger picture.

   Gabriel tried not to think of the implications of that. He really wasn’t this pathetic.

   “They aren’t actively shooting at us,” Balthazar said once Gabriel turned back to the control panel. “Not with anything that will hurt us. I believe they’re trying to slow us down only.”

   “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.” He shot a look at Castiel, who was looking outside with pursed lips. “You armed?”

   “Of course I am.”

   “I need you to check on your human. Bring him something to defend himself with. You know where to find it.” It was a fruitless attempt, fighting against their own kin if it came to it, but they had to maintain the illusion.

   “Tell me again why you’re on the run?” Charlie asked. “Because I feel now that I’m in the middle of it, I deserve to know the whole story.”

   He sighed. “Her name’s Naomi. She’s in charge around our planet, and she likes everyone to stick to the rules.”

   Charlie raised an eyebrow.

   “Well, and you know me,” Gabriel said with a grin.

   “What did you _do_?”

   “Oh, come on. It’s not my fault she didn’t approve of my relationship like I’m some kind of pubescent teenager.”

   “Could’ve fooled me,” she said, but it was in good humour. “What was so bad about it?”

   “Kali wasn’t exactly one of us,” Gabriel admitted. “Naomi called it ‘fraternizing with the enemy’, and ‘compromising the safety of our planet’, if I recall correctly.”

   “The enemy?”

   “Interplanetary relationships are frowned upon, apparently.”

   “So what does Cas have to do with it?”

   “I—ah—may have used _his_ ship to go see her,” Gabriel said sheepishly. “He doesn’t mind, he never liked our planet anyway. He’s much better off on Earth.”

   “You keep telling everyone that,” Castiel’s voice came from the other side of the room, “but I doubt you believe it yourself.”

   “Aw, c’mon, Cassie.”

   Cas sighed. “I have come to appreciate Earth, perhaps more than I should.”

   “You’ve come to appreciate a certain Earthling more than you should,” Gabriel said with a grin.

   “But that does not mean I appreciate you dragging me down with you,” Cas said, ignoring the jab. “Dean is working on the damage. Which is not _nothing_ , Balthazar.”

   “I have worse things to worry about,” Balthazar said. “And you’re all just gossiping.”

   “One more question,” Charlie said quickly as Gabriel turned back to the control panel. “What happened with Kali?”

   Gabriel didn’t even look at her as he answered. “Dumped me. They can be a bit ruthless, demigods.”

*

   They were doing just fine outrunning Naomi. Gabriel, Balthazar and Charlie were working the ship to its fullest potential, making sure she would go as fast as she could and keeping an eye on everything that could go wrong at this speed. Dean had found a temporary fix for the damage done to the rear of the ship—“It ain’t perfect, but it’ll hold.”

   Problem was, Naomi didn’t give up easy. The fact that after three years she still cared about Gabriel’s “exposing the planet to a species much more powerful and endangering everyone” made that clear enough. 

   “Can’t we just hand over this guy so the rest of us can go home?” Dean grumbled, gesturing at Gabriel.

   “Hey, I never asked you to come along, don’t take it out on me.”

   “And I never asked to run from some weird angry aunt from a different planet forever, so if you’d just let me go back to where I came from, that’d be great, thanks.”

   “I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas said.

   “Sorry ain’t getting me back to Earth, pal.”

   “Perhaps Dean is right, though,” Cas said.

   “You planning to give me up?”

   “I never said that. I meant that we will not be able to run forever. Perhaps we could try to… speak to Naomi.”

   Gabriel snorted. “Yeah, because _that’s_ always worked.”

   “You’ve never even tried to talk to her,” Dean said incredulously.

   “She’s been trying to kill me for years!” He sighed. “Fine. Balth, give them the white light, will you?”

   “Are you sure?”

   “No. Do it anyway.” He pushed a few buttons and they skidded to a halt. This was the worst idea he’d ever had—Gabriel generally liked to care about himself first and foremost, and if this was going end badly for anyone, it would most definitely be him. Whether anyone would believe it or not, he’d only ever wanted to fly under the radar. It wasn’t _his_ fault Kali wasn’t from their planet, was it? Had her people ever blown up Eden? No. So what was the whole point of this, anyway? No one had died (yet), though he was pretty sure if Naomi had her way, _he_ would. Especially when she found out he now had _humans_ on his ship.

   Yeah, she wasn’t going to like that part at all. As if humans could possibly do any damage to their race.

   “Gabriel.”

   “Naomi,” he answered her projected, disapproving face. “You look _radiant_ today. I’d appreciate it if you stopped damaging my ship.”

   “I’d appreciate it if you gave yourself over,” she replied smoothly. “Come on, Gabriel, Castiel. You know the rules. You know you cannot have interplanetary relationships. The rules of our brethren are very clear on that.”

   “We’re all still alive, aren’t we?” Gabriel argued. “Come on, Naomi, is this all really worth it? If anything, I showed that our species _can_ work together. We could all take that as an example, really.”

   “She dumped you,” Naomi pointed out.

   “And neither of us blew up the other’s planet because of the breakup, did we?”

   “I cannot let you get away with breaking the rules so severely. You are a bad example for the fletchlings.”

   “How ‘bout this,” a voice spoke up. Gabriel groaned silently. He should’ve told them all to get the hell out. Naomi hadn’t noticed the humans yet—of course Castiel’s fling would be the one to ruin that. “You exile the guy, make sure he can never come back. Make up some story about what happened to him. Tell everyone he’s dead, I don’t care. If he can’t come back, no one ever has to know it’s not true, do they?”

   It wasn’t a bad idea. It was just bad that Dean had to be the one to come up with it.

   “Is that an Earthling, Gabriel?” Her eyes flicked to Charlie, then Castiel. “Two humans. And of course you would be there, too, Castiel. You were always quite the rebel, aren’t you?”

   “Naomi, please,” Cas said quietly. “We have not hurt anybody. Our friend’s plan is solid. If you leave us be, we will never bother the planet or its surrounding space again.”

   “And you can still make an example out of them,” Dean chipped.

   “Will you shut up?” Gabriel said.

   “Fine,” Naomi said. “But if either of you ever set foot on the planet again, or if we’re attacked by any of your alien acquaintances—”

   “You’ll hunt us down and blow up their planets,” Gabriel finished. She’d been doing that for years, so he was sure he could live with that. He felt no urge to go back, anyway. Assuming Kali was content with the breakup as it was, and Cas would keep an eye on Dean to make sure he didn’t blab, they’d be fine.

   He had no idea it could be this easy.

   Of course, that would be when the entire ship shook again.

   “We just discussed—”

   “That was not me,” Naomi said. “And as you no longer fall under our jurisdiction, you also no longer fall under our protective laws. Good luck, Gabriel.”

   “What a bitch,” Dean said as she blinked out.

   “I’d tell you not to use that word, but I couldn’t say it better,” Charlie said. “So now someone else is after us? How many people are out for you guys?”

   “Oh, just these two,” Gabriel said. He looked at Cas, who blanched.

   “We could try to run again,” Balthazar said, “but I don’t think we could get up to speed fast enough.”

   “It’s alright,” Cas said. “I’ll deal with this.”

   “Cassie—”

   “Hello, boys.”

   “Who the hell is that now?” Dean said, annoyance clear on his face, and this time Gabriel couldn’t even blame him. If there was one face he’d like to see even less than Naomi’s, it was this one. “There’s a real reason Cassie here didn’t mind going into hiding.”

   “You hurt me,” the face said.

   “And you’re hurting my ship. What do you want?”

   “You could just let me in, you know. That would be the polite thing to do.”

   “What can I say? I’m an asshole.” Gabriel shrugged.

   “And you’ve picked up a few strays. That’s adorable. Especially him,” the man’s face said, nodding at Dean, who flushed. “What the hell, man?”

   Castiel and Crowley had quite some bad blood between them, not in the least because Castiel double-crossed the guy when they were supposed to be working together one time. It hadn’t helped that Crowley had had a humongous crush on Castiel at the time, either. He was still bitter about it, and he liked to make that clear at every opportunity he got. Such was the way of his subspecies, something anyone working with them should take into consideration.

   Castiel, clearly, had not, despite the warnings. When dealing with the Deamones, this was the worst mistake you could make.

   It would be no use getting into that now, however, as you will see the cunningness of these creatures for yourself soon enough.

   It all happened very fast, as these things tend to do.

   One moment, they were all staring at the spot where the 3D image just hovered in the air; the next, the man—at least, he looked like a man to Dean—was standing right in their midst. “Hello, Castiel.”  

   “Crowley,” Cas acknowledged. “What do you want?”

   “You,” said Crowley. “Did you really think double-crossing me would end well? I have been biding my time until Naomi’s feud with you ended, and now that you no longer fall under the protection of your planet… I suppose it doesn’t matter what happens to you to anyone, does it?”

   “You suppose wrong,” Charlie said.

   “Humans believe they are worth much more than they are, darling,” Crowley said. “I’d stay out if it, if I were you.”

   “I have found humans to be quite remarkable,” Cas said. Dean wasn’t sure how to feel about that—it wasn’t like he’d done anything special during the time he’d known Cas, and the guy must’ve met other humans, right? He probably didn’t even mean him to begin with.

   Hell, ever since The Incident happened months ago, all he’d done was revalidate and sulk, not exactly a combination that worked out all that well.

   If humans were remarkable, Dean made a poor example of one.

   “Yeah, yeah,” said Crowley. “That’s because you wanna bang that one. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I get it, you know. If you can look through that layer of sweat and who-knows-what, some of them—” He looks at Dean appraisingly—“can be quite… appealing.”

   If looks could kill, this would all have been resolved easily. At this time, however, no species has been found that can do such a thing, so they would have to solve it in a different way.

   “If that’s why you thought you’d make yourself look like one, you should’ve thought to make yourself a bit taller,” Gabriel quipped.

   No one so much as smiled at the irony.

   “Quiet, Gabriel,” Cas said. “I will go with him.”

   “Hell no—”

   “No, Dean. You do not know what this man is capable of.”

   “Well, I do,” Gabriel said, serious this time. “And as much as it pains me to say it, I’m with Dean-o here.”

   “This is all very touching, but I’m not here to collect sob stories. I’m here to collect a debt. I suggest you all let this one decide for himself what’s best for him. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

   Dean briefly considered offering to go in Cas’s place, but as if in response, his leg gave one heavy throb, as though it wanted him to remember that he was just a useless human anyway. And thus he made a much more reckless decision.

   He threw himself into the short humanoid.

   Now, in order to understand this fully, we must look into the context of the situation. Castiel was not of a species that could teleport, the way Crowley had done getting into their ship, so they had to get out a different way. Which is to say, the front door. Balthazar had conveniently opened it for them, so quietly Crowley appeared not to have noticed yet.

   “Damn,” Charlie said, looking at the quickly disappearing dot in the space below them. “I was just considering exactly that.”

   “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

   “Are you alright?”

   “Your leg,” Castiel said, without so much as a thank you for throwing his enemy out into space. “It’s paining you.”

   “Shut up, Cas.”

   “I could help.”

   “Can you regrow my leg?”

   “Oh!” Charlie said. “What happened?”

   “Tour. Splinters. Honourable discharge. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

   “It’s just a leg, you know. It could have been your life.”

   _Maybe it should have been._ “It ain’t that easy.”

   “Of course it isn’t. But your doom and gloom isn’t getting you anywhere. You _did_ just kill an alien, you know, it’s not like you’re incapable of doing anything anymore.”

   Dean wonders if she’s talking from experience, but he doesn’t dare ask.

   “I can’t regrow your leg,” Cas said. “But I can take away any pain you still feel. I can make it feel more natural. I can… do what your physical therapy was supposed to do.”

   “Whatever,” said Dean.

   He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the warm hand on his upper leg or the uncomfortable (too comfortable) glow that seemed to seep from that spot into his bones.

   “Alright,” Gabriel said. “Let’s get you two back to that pie shop before Cassie here takes things further into his own hands.”

   Charlie snickered.

   Dean flushed.

   Cas appeared completely oblivious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I apologise for this one taking me longer than planned. First of all, the weather's been really nice so I've been out a lot. Second, I'm a bit nervous about this one because it's a bit chaotic and most of all, everything happens very fast. I tried for a pie shop au with some sci fi influences rather than the other way round and I hope it worked out at this bit.


	4. The last part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endings are hard.
> 
> This chapter got longer than I intended and yet I feel not long enough, so I hope I made it right.

   Dean hadn’t been that angry at anyone in a while. At himself, maybe. At the world, or whatever God would let the world go to shit the way it had. But not at anyone _else_ in particular. He wasn’t even sure why this so-called alien had managed to piss him off as bad as he had. He hadn’t looked that threatening, and he hadn’t exactly pulled a gun on any of them—or whatever it was that aliens used as weapons. He’d just had the misfortune of meeting Dean on an especially bad day.

   (As you and I, and everyone on that ship, well know, it had much more to do with a certain other alien. Of course, Dean knew this, too. The human species is often stubborn, but not stupid.)

   Dean Winchester was the kind of human who had a lot of anger inside of him. They aren’t rare, though they may deal with it in entirely different ways. In Dean Winchester’s case, his job had helped him greatly, until he lost it along with his leg in one smooth move to save another person.

   Then his anger grew, in that way it has when something terrible happens or one loses their outlet, to the point where the mere faces of hostile, human-looking species had made him want to punch something.

   And so he did, in much the same way as he had once saved someone.

   He’d saved someone this time, too. He’d just thrown the mine off the person, instead of the person off the mine. It didn’t feel better than the first time. It didn’t feel worse either, despite possibly killing… something.

   _“You don’t know what this man is capable of.”_

   Dean flexed his fingers. _You don’t know what_ humans _are capable of._

   He was answering to voices that sounded very far away. Charlie. Cas. Cas, who would just have gone with that guy without a fight like that was the only option. (Asked later, Castiel would never admit that he was only making sure not to get into a fight where humans could get hurt because of him. He had learned what many of us already know, which is that humans are often easily offended.)

   “I wanna go home.”

   He was aware he sounded like a child. He didn’t, as he would put it himself, give a crap.

   “Are you alright?”

   Cas’s face was too close, hovering in front of Dean’s, his hand still on the human’s leg. Dean wanted the alien to give him some space. He also didn’t want him to let go.

   “’m fine, Cas. I’m just tired.”

   “Oh. Of course.” He didn’t move. “Our species barely sleeps, but we do have beds. You can rest, if you want.”

   _Not that kind of tired._ “Thanks.”

   There was the fleeting thought that he kept ending up in Cas’s bed for all the wrong reasons, but it was just that—fleeting. He still wasn’t sure this wasn’t all just a dream and he’d wake up again in the apartment above the pie shop.

   He didn’t have to worry about waking up, though, because he didn’t sleep. He just kicked Crowley into outer space over and over again, thinking he couldn’t let any more people die or disappear on his watch. Not even when the people in question refused to defend himself.

   He didn’t what alien war was like, but he knew about human war, and he refused to let them be the same.

*

   The pie shop looked exactly as when they left it. It hadn’t magically finished itself. There weren’t any warm pies waiting for them. There was only a lot of work left to do. It felt a little like looking at a blueprint of the Chinese Wall and seeing it only half done.

   Kicking an alien out of a space ship had been much, much less stressful than renovating a pie shop. Perhaps it had to do with the former being a spur of the moment decision in a context that Dean still did not entirely believe to be true, but he would rather do that again than pick the paintbrush back up.

   “You should not feel bad for throwing Crowley out into space,” Castiel assured him, misinterpreting Dean’s surliness.

   He didn’t feel bad about it. Hell, he’d wanted to beat the guy into a pulp, but that would have been _unnecessarily violent_ and _not conductive to his psychological recovery_ , just when he’d started to feel like he gave a crap about that again. “I feel bad that there is so much in outer space I never knew about,” Dean said. “And I feel bad that I’d rather never have known about it. Can we focus on this, now?” He gestured slightly with the paintbrush, splattering drops of white paint on his shirt.

   Cas sighed. “Yes, of course.”

   So they worked, until it was all finished and scrubbed and looked exactly like they had envisioned it beforehand. Charlie even helped a little, in exchange for free pie in the future (although in reality, they both suspected it had more to do with Jo).

   “Hey Cas, pass me a rag, will ya? No one’s gonna want to sit in a booth when it looks like this.”

   He still shrieked when something wet hit him in his neck. It was made worse by the fact that Cas wasn’t even looking. “You’re supposed to _hand it over_ , you asshat, I can’t catch things with my brain.”

   “I apologize,” Cas said. Judging by his smirk, he wasn’t truly sorry.

   There was a whole lot of life on other planets. Space was immense. Dean’s life on Earth meant nothing, nor anyone else’s. For a human, this could be a crushing revelation.

   Dean found it greatly relieving. Sure, he’d rather not known exactly how pointless fights on Earth were. But at least the aliens weren’t thin, green creatures with weird heads and massive eyes. At least they were boring and bureaucratic. At least they were no scarier than humans. Dean was pretty sure if it had been humans chasing another species’ space ship, it would’ve been blown up in minutes. He likely wasn’t wrong.

   At least one of them was Cas.

   Of course, there were many species in the galaxy, many who were equally terrifying as humans. This story shows only a very short glimpse of a very small part of it. Of course, the galaxy is a big place, and few species take an interest in Earth, of all places. Dean Winchester would likely see no more aliens in the rest of his life than any other human that century. He did not know this fact then, but he did assume it to be the case.

   He had hated himself for following orders, and he had hated himself for not doing so. He had hated himself for failing, and he had hated himself for not trying to get himself back together afterward. He had shot and been shot, killed and nearly been killed. And he had been on a space ship and kicked an alien’s ass, even if it had been for a large part to prove to himself that he wasn’t entirely useless yet.

   It he had to pick only one of those things to define how he structured his life, it was going to be the last one.

   “You weren’t useless either way,” Cas said one day, when Dean had crashed at his place again.

   “What?”

   “You’re not useless regardless of whether you conquered an alien.”

   “What are you—Whatever.”

   “You talk in your sleep.”

   He couldn’t see his own face, but he could feel it scrunch up. “Shut up, Cas.”

   “I just wanted you to know.”

*

   They re-opened the pie with the added tag-line ‘out of this world’, because Dean thought he was hilarious.

   “I’m allowing you this because you helped with the renovation.”

   “You’re allowing me this because I’m adorable.”

   “That, too,” Castiel admitted easily. His directness wasn’t any less weird knowing that he was from a different planet.

   “ _You’re_ adorable,” Dean muttered, then flushed, then coughed and said, “Anyway, you ready for this?”

   The corner of Cas’s mouth twitched, but he had the good sense to act like he hadn’t heard it. “Yes. You may open the doors.”

   There was a line of people forming already, with Jo and Charlie at the front, pressing their noses against the door and waving. It was too bad he couldn’t yank open the door in such a way they’d fall on the floor. He doubted Ellen would appreciate that, either.

   “Um, hi. Welcome to the new shop…”

   “I’ve come to collect!” Charlie said happily. “We’ve been notified the pies are ‘out of this world’.”

   “Don’t you know it.”

   She winked.

   It felt like the whole town had come out to see the new shop. They hadn’t, of course, but enough people appreciated Castiel’s pies that the little shop felt crowded. Even the Lady Aida had turned up to have a look, and Bobby, who grudgingly took his first bite of a slice of pie practically forced on him by Ellen Harvelle. “I just came to show the boy some support.”

   “The best support is appreciating their efforts to the fullest.”

   “She’s not wrong,” Dean said with a shrug. “Aw, c’mon, Bobby, you know I appreciate seeing your grumpy face again.”

   “Do ya? You haven’t exactly been over to visit much since you came back.”

   “I’m sorry. I was just too tired, I guess.”

   “And now you’re fine,” Bobby said sceptically, understanding exactly what Dean meant.

   “Now I’m still tired,” Dean said. “I guess I just… found something new to dedicate my life to.”

   The old man raised his eyebrows. “Like a pie shop.”

   Dean smiled and looked at Cas behind the counter. “Like a pie shop.”

   “Well, I gotta admit, it’s pretty damn good pie.”              

   “Thanks, Bobby.”

   Aida was sitting by herself, looking around the place and enjoying the pie she’d taught Cas to bake. Dean thought about going up to her, but she seemed content to enjoy her pie in quiet. Jo and Charlie were standing with their plates in their hands, a little too close together, talking and laughing with Cas, who’d served the last customer that had come to congratulate him with the new place. Ellen was watching them, too.

   “This girl,” she said after a period of silence. “You think she’s good?”

   “I think she’s great,” Dean said. He didn’t know Charlie _that_ well, but it still felt like he had known her forever.

   “Hm.”

   “Jo seems to like her,” he offered.

   “I can see that,” Ellen said drily. “Jo hasn’t always given out her affections well, though.”

   Dean looked away, slightly guilty. He knew—everyone knew—Jo had had a crush on him. He’d left with barely a goodbye anyway. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

   “I ain’t blaming you, boy, we’re over that. We’re all just glad you’re back and that you seem happy again. I just want her to be careful.”

   “I’ll give Charlie the Talk.”

   “Please,” Ellen said, “as if you could do it better than me. Speaking of, I may need to have a chat with that man of yours.”

   “Ellen—”

   But she was already gone.

   “He’s not—”

   “Boy,” said Bobby, “if you’re gonna try to convince me you’re not into that one, forget it. We helped raise you. And we ain’t blind, neither. Now get me another slice o' this.”

 

 

   (If Dean practically moved into the apartment above the shop, it was only for the sake of convenience. After all, he helped full-time in the shop now, selling Cas’s heavenly pies while the Pie Maker tried out new flavours and perfected old ones. If he finally blurted out the first “I love you” to someone other than his mother or Sam, it was just because it was the heat of the moment—covered in flour and smiles and the best kiss in the galaxy, fucking finally, the best kiss in the galaxy—even if they’d only kissed the once, and even if said kiss was messy and ungraceful.

   “Let’s try that again,” he added.

   “I have been told practice makes perfect,” Cas agreed, smirking only slightly.

   A pie shop, Dean decided, was a hell of a lot better to dedicate his life to than following orders.

   At least, most of the time.)

*

*

   You may wonder what happened to Gabriel, after all this.

   The ship was quiet and empty without the others. Gabriel had never seen this as an issue before; he’d liked the feeling of being on the run, somehow. But dropping Cas and the humans back on Earth so they could all live happily ever after had left him with a feeling of loneliness that he hadn’t experienced before. Not like this.

   It didn’t help that Balthazar had been scarily quiet lately. He’d respond to commands, and to questions, but he wouldn’t banter with Gabriel the way he used to.

   He seemed to be talking to himself, more than anything.

   So imagine his surprise when he heard a noise from behind the door of the AI’s heart. “Balth?”

   Nothing.

   “Shit.”

   If he were human, his heart would be beating painfully against his ribcage. It was probably Crowley who’d come back somehow. Gabriel knew he could take the guy, but it wasn’t unlikely that the other had brought friends, and with Balthazar MIA…

   The door creaked loudly as it swung open.

   It wasn’t Crowley.

   It wasn’t anyone Gabriel knew at all.

   The guy standing in the doorway was—well— _hot,_ lean and blond and wearing a dark v-neck that showed off his chest. He looked like a cocky guy, except his stance was surprisingly shy. “Gabe.”

   He knew that voice. “Balthazar? Dammit, you asshole, I thought you were—shit.” He paused a second. “That is so illegal.”

   The man’s face fell. “Should I not have…”

   “Hells no you shouldn’t have.” Gabriel stepped forward, face breaking out into a smirk. “But hells yeah did you pick a hot avatar.”

  “So—”

   “When have you ever known me to care about doing something illegal?”

   Balthazar looked relieved. “Sorry I’ve been so distant. Charlie helped with a lot, but then she left and I had to do the last part all by myself, and I can’t tell you I wasn’t bloody nervous you wouldn’t like this avatar, since it’s more like you than Charlie, according to her…”

   “Shut up. I like it. I like it _a whole lot_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading guys ❤ 
> 
> find me on [tumblr](http://asexualfeministagenda.tumblr.com) | [insta](http://instagram.com/michelleisontour)


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